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Wild comeback falls short as Hawks take opener

Minnesota Wild winger Zach Parise scores on Chicago Blackhawks goalie Corey Crawford during the second period in Game 1 of their second-round playoff series Friday at United Center. (Jerry Lai/USA TODAY Sports)

CHICAGO - The Minnesota Wild rolled into the United Center Friday night did exactly what they said they would do: prove to Chicago they are a better team than the one the Blackhawks eliminated in 2013 and 2014.

Unfortunately for the Wild, they still can’t prove they’re better than the Blackhawks.

Not yet, anyway.

Despite a heroic second period comeback from three goals down - itself a testament to Minnesota’s growth - they still found themselves a goal short in the end.

Rookie Teuvo Teravainen’s long-distance floater late in the second period stood up as the winner as the Blackhawks took the opening game of their second round series 4-3.

Same old, same old for a Minnesota team with three wins in 12 playoff games against Chicago.

“This is a team that will battle back every time and not give up, we showed it tonight,” said the Wild’s Mikael Granlund. “But we can talk about coming back all night long, it still wasn’t enough.”

The Hawks, now 7-0 at home against Minnesota in the playoffs, noticed a difference in Minnesota, too, but still took care of business when they needed to. They jumped out to a 3-0 lead, they didn’t panic when Minnesota rallied to tie it, they scored the winner and they closed it out in a scoreless third.

“(MInnesota) is playing with a lot of confidence,” said Hawks goalie Corey Craword. “But we came out and had the start we wanted. The second was a tough one for us but we were able to score late there, get the lead and our third was pretty solid.”

With both sides predicting a tight-checking, low scoring chess match featuring great goaltending and two teams playing not to make mistakes, Game 1 turned into a pretty much the exact opposite.

Highlighted by defensive breakdowns and spotty netminding, the Hawks and Wild delivered a momentum-swinging shootout that’s sure to have both coaches talking themselves hoarse in Saturday’s film sessions.

It was last goal wins, and Chicago scored it.

“They have dangerous players, a lot of skill over there, and if you make a mistake most of the time it ends up in your net,” said Wild defenceman Ryan Suter. “That’s how they play. They’ve always done that.

“It sucks, but you have to leave it behind you. You win the game you have to forget about it. We lost the game we have to forget about it, too. Just prepare for the next game Sunday and be better.”

It wasn’t the way anybody drew it up, but it was fun.

Concerns that Chicago would struggle for offence against Dubnyk didn’t last long. The Hawks began chipping away at his aura almost immediately, scoring on three of their first seven shots (Brandon Saad at 1:15, Patrick Kane at 13:11 and Marcus Kruger at 15:15) and appeared to have the evening in a stranglehold by the first intermission.

Minnesota, which had never won a playoff game in the United Center and had been outscored 23-8 in their previous six losses, looked rattled, if not overwhelmed.

“It’s a great team over there and if you make a couple of mistakes they will bury them and that’s what happened,” said Vanek. “They buried three quick ones. But we just said keep going, build it shift at a time because we didn’t think we played a horrible first. But obviously 3-0 wasn’t great.”

But as quickly as the Wild dug their hole, they crawled out of it. Quicker, even.

It took just nine shots and eight minutes in the second period for Minnesota to completely wipe out the 3-0 deficit.

Jason Zucker cued the comeback with one from the slot at 1:21, Zach Parise closed it to 3-2 on a nice pass from Thomas Vanek on the power play at 5:07 and Mikael Granlund completed the seemingly impossible at 9:30.

And, just like that, the Wild had gone all Blackhawks on the Blackhawks.

Then the killer. Teravainen’s long floater with 58.2 seconds left in the second somehow eluded Dubnyk.

Minny would never recover.

“I didn’t pick it up till it was about 5-6 feet in front of me,” said Dubnyk.

“I kind of waved at it and missed it. I didn’t see it come off the guy’s stick. I didn’t pick it up at all. It’s certainly a disappointing one to give that one up when you work as hard as we did to come back.”